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Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 21.
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Journal Article
Increasing national saving: are IRAs the answer?
An argument that curtailing deductions for personal interest expense would be a more effective strategy for increasing national saving.
Conference Paper
Payday lending: do the costs justify the price?
Journal Article
The short-run dynamics of long-run inflation policy
An examination of the short- and long-term implications of an inflation policy on real output, using a method that allows structural interpretation of a simple VAR applied to a macroeconomic system that includes real output and inflation.
Working Paper
The role of banks in influencing regional flow of funds
A presentation of a theoretical model of regional banking using plausible information asymmetries to explain how local bank capital may affect the funding of regional investments, concluding that regional banking conditions can affect the efficiency of investment and the level of future aggregate output.
Journal Article
Is household debt inhibiting the recovery?
An examination of the pattern of household debt and asset levels in a historical context, whose results cast doubt on the presumption that heavy consumer debt loads incurred during the 1980s are the cause of the economy's current sluggishness.
Journal Article
Securitization: more than just a regulatory artifact
An exploration of the recent boom in asset-backed lending, or securitization, by both financial institutions and nonbank firms, which the authors contend is more the result of improvements in information technology than a response to the regulatory costs of traditional bank funding.
Working Paper
Portfolio risks and bank asset choice
An investigation of the effects of credit risk and interest-rate risk on bank portfolio choices, showing how bank capital inadequacy may prevent a bank from investing in the optimal portfolio and how the efficiency of the bank's intermediation technology affects its choice of second-best portfolio.
Report
Piggy banks: financial intermediaries as a commitment to save
Savers with uncertain life spans cannot stick to long-term investment plans when they invest directly in liquid assets. Before horizons are known, all savers will plan to roll over their short-term assets if returns turn out high. Ex post, the short-term investors will consume their liquid assets rather than reinvest them. Delegating investment decisions to an intermediary reduces the commitment problem, and leads to more efficient portfolios. The higher return to savings should also increase savings rates.
Journal Article
In search of the elusive credit view: testing for a credit channel in modern Great Britain
An examination of the credit performance of the financial sector in the modern British economy, showing that problems in credit markets associated with debt and default/liquidation can disrupt the production of real financial services necessary to channel funds to efficient investment opportunities.
Discussion Paper
Piggy Banks
What do banks do? Ask an economist and you’ll get a variety of answers. Banks play a vital role in allocating capital by linking savers and borrowers; they produce information by screening and monitoring borrowers; they create liquidity; they share and distribute risk; they engage in maturity transformation by borrowing short and lending long. What you won’t usually hear is that banks may help people stick to an optimal savings plan that they might not be able to stick to if they invested their money themselves. In other words, banks may serve as piggy banks by preventing people from ...